Signal Fires
by Mally O'Jack
Summary: John and Sherlock are trapped underground in an abandoned Tube station. Some unexpected truths emerge.


Bit more tentative about this one. Any thoughts you have, dear reader, would be cool.

* * *

Signal Fires

by Mally O'Jack

"Mmmm..." he groans.

"John?"

He cracks open his eyes. It is pitch black. His first thought, as always, is for Sherlock.

"Sherlock, you okay?" He shifts -

"No, don't move," he hears Sherlock say, but it is too late. A wave of sickly agony rises up, and he gasps. His side is on fire.

"I told you not to move," Sherlock says, and his voice sounds as if it is under water.

He sucks in deep breaths, keeping his eyes closed, and gradually the pain loses its furious edge.

"What happened?" he says when he is able to speak.

"You don't remember?"

"No."

"Try." Sherlock's voice is clipped.

He pushes through the murky memories, forces himself to think. "We were...running. In the Underground."

"Good," Sherlock says, encouragingly. "What else?"

Under the glare of the bright lights, they'd run; Sherlock racing ahead with his coat billowing out like a cape, nearly colliding with a busker, and that absurd tin whistle melody following them down the platform, giving them speed, spurring them on...

"We were chasing the killer, and then..."

"Yes?"

He remembers the disused portion of the Underground giving way, and Sherlock, falling, all of them, falling...

There is another jet of pain, and he cries out.

"John," Sherlock says insistently, "you need to find the wound and put pressure on it."

"Bit of help would be nice," he says between breaths.

"I can't get to you," Sherlock says, and for the first time he sounds tense. "I've been trying, but I'm trapped."

He attempts to take stock of his injuries. He is lying on his back, and he can't seem to move his legs. He feels his left side, probing the fiery ache, and there is a stickiness on his fingers. He must have caught his side somehow when he fell.

"How bad is it?" Sherlock asks then.

"I don't know. Bad, I think."

"You need to put pressure on it."

"I thought I was the doctor." He tries to keep his tone light.

There is a low rumbling; the sound of one of the trains going past. He can feel the vibrations through the hard ground.

It's so dark down here. Like a coffin. He is beginning to feel just a little bit afraid.

"Sherlock?" he says. "Where are you?"

"I'd estimate about two metres to your right."

"Can you reach my hand?" John gropes for Sherlock's hand in the darkness.

"You're too far away," Sherlock says.

"It's okay." He leaves his arm outstretched anyway, in the direction of Sherlock's voice. "Any sign of the killer?"

"No."

"Maybe he's unconscious."

Sherlock makes a non-committal noise. "Can you access your phone?"

He tries, but the movement is too much for him. "No. You?"

"I dropped mine when I fell. Perhaps...um..." and then Sherlock trails off.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he says, concerned.

"I'm fine," Sherlock says, a little too quickly.

"Sherlock - "

"I may have hurt my head a bit. I'll be fine."

He knows that any further questioning about his health will only irritate his friend. He shivers. "Does Lestrade know we're here?"

"No."

"Does anyone?"

"It's doubtful."

"What about Mycroft?"

"I can't imagine his security network extends to abandoned Tube stations."

"Oh." He lets these facts sink in. He can't stop shaking, and the movement is jarring his side.

"John?"

"Could you talk about something?" he says tightly, unable to keep the pain from his voice. "To take my mind off it?"

There is silence for a moment as Sherlock thinks. "This section of the Underground is supposed to be haunted."

"Not helping," he says through gritted teeth.

There is quiet again.

"Molly Hooper agrees with me that people are just corpses waiting to happen."

"_Really_ not helping."

"I'm not good at this sort of thing," Sherlock says with a flash of irritation, but John can detect the undercurrent of stress in his voice.

"Why don't you... sing me a song?" He is joking of course, but he is pleasantly surprised when Sherlock launches into a shaky rendition of _Everybody Hurts _by REM.

He laughs, despite the pain. "How do you know that one?"

"It was on your laptop. Are you impressed?"

"I'm always impressed by you," he says, and he means it.

Another vibration as a train goes by.

He's so cold. He feels like he's drifting away, like a balloon floating into the sky.

"John, you need to stay with me," he hears Sherlock say. "John?"

"Yeah, I'm here. I'm here." He licks his dry lips. "Any regrets?"

"Don't start getting maudlin -"

"I've got so many," he continues, ignoring Sherlock.

"Such as?"

"I wish I'd been nicer to Harry for one."

"You're too nice to her as it is. Any nicer and you'd be moving in with her, and then I'd be all by myself. Next?"

"Um...I regret signing up to that twelve month phone contract last week."

He hears a puff of laughter from Sherlock.

"No, seriously," he says, and there is a roaring in his ears now, "you know what my biggest regret is?"

"What?"

It hurts to say it, but he says it anyway. "Leaving you."

"You didn't leave me," Sherlock says, and he sounds far away now. "John. John!" There is fear in that solid, deep voice, and it is this emotion, more than anything, that tugs him back.

"Do you want to know what my regret is?" Sherlock is saying. "Do you, John?"

He struggles to focus on the voice. "Go on then."

"I regret that you didn't get shot in Afghanistan sooner."

He blinks into the darkness. "What? Why?"

"Because then I would've met you earlier."

The pain is softer now, lulling him to sleep, and he smiles into the darkness. "That's one of the nicest things you've ever said to me."

He hears Sherlock huff.

"It's our past that makes us who we are," he continues, "and I couldn't escape if I wanted to, 'cause my fate was to be with you..." He thinks he is reciting the lyrics to an Abba song. "Anyway," he says, trying to martial his thoughts, "I wasn't ready to meet you, before. It had to be then."

"Ah yes. The army doctor with the fake limp. You're right; if you'd been _normal_ and _boring_ then I probably wouldn't have bothered with you."

He is taken aback. "But I thought you liked having me around?"

"The frailty of genius, John, remember? It always needs an audience."

Sherlock can be cruel sometimes, but these words _hurt_.

"John?"

He can't answer.

"John, I didn't really mean it. I was just saying it to keep you awake."

He lets his breath out in a whoosh. "You _bastard_."

"You said you wanted me to distract you," Sherlock says, and he even manages to sound indignant about it.

"Yes, but I didn't mean for you to say... that." His deepest insecurities about himself, about his friendship with Sherlock, that he didn't even think Sherlock knew about, suddenly laid bare.

"I apologise."

Silence.

"It worked though," Sherlock can't help but add.

"Shut up."

"Do you really think you're dying?" Sherlock says then, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

"Yeah. It's stopped hurting now. That's not a great sign." He's surprised at how matter-of-fact he sounds.

"No. It isn't."

"Anyway, I'm glad I'm dying first."

"You are?"

"Yeah. I wouldn't be able to cope if you died." He knows this with a concrete certainty.

"No," Sherlock says then, slowly, "I think you'll be fine, after you get all the melodrama over with. You've got your sister to take care of, and Mrs. Hudson, and your work at the clinic. You'll do better than you think."

He is unnerved by how much thought Sherlock seems to have put into this. "Well, it looks like I'll be dying first, so that's that."

"What if we make a pact?" Sherlock says.

"What sort of pact?"

"An 'I won't die if you won't' sort of pact."

He laughs. It is ridiculous. "Okay, sure. Why not."

They lie there in the darkness together. John listens to Sherlock breathing. He doesn't even feel cold any more.

"John." And there is something a bit off about Sherlock's voice. "I don't want you to die."

"Join the club, mate."

"I'm serious," Sherlock says, and his voice catches.

_Bloody hell, is Sherlock Holmes actually crying?_

"It's okay," he says, dismayed at his friend's sudden distress. "Sherlock, it's okay. I know you've got a God complex going on, but you can't save everyone. It's all right."

"No, you don't understand. You have to live. Please, will you do this for me?"

The words send a chill down his spine. There are voices now, behind him. Rescue is on its way.

"I'm a fake," Sherlock tells him, his voice breaking.

"What?" He is struggling to breathe.

"It's a trick. Just a magic trick.

Someone is shining a light into his eyes, and he tries to pull away. There are more voices.

"Why are you saying this?"

"Goodbye, John."

"No. Sherlock - Sherlock - "

They are lifting him up, away from his friend, and he is still screaming Sherlock's name when the ambulance doors close.

* * *

Bright lights...the beep of the monitors...the clinical smell of a hospital ward. Visitors - Lestrade...Mrs. Hudson, stroking his hair... Sarah.

"There was an incident," Sarah tells him, holding his hand. "At the clinic. You got stabbed. A psych referral. He locked you in a store room with him. John, you nearly died."

And one time, in the early hours before dawn, it is Sherlock, touching his shoulder. John is struggling to surface from the drugs, and at first he thinks it's a doctor, but then he recognises Sherlock's face, and for some reason Sherlock's hair is _really_ short, and by the time he's fully awake, Sherlock is gone.

* * *

As soon as they release him from the hospital he goes straight to the Diogenes club. He barrels into Mycroft's office without knocking.

Mycroft looks up from his desk, surprised, but then quickly recovers his composure. "John - "

"He's alive, isn't he." A statement, not a question. His heart is racing. "Sherlock. He's alive."

"Take a seat, John." John doesn't feel like taking a seat, he is too unsettled, but something in Mycroft's expression makes him sit down.

"I have a copy of your hospital notes here," Mycroft tells him, taking out a brown folder from one of the drawers in his desk. He flicks through it. "Apparently you had quite the conversation with my brother whilst you were bleeding to death at the clinic."

"Yes, I know, I'm not talking about that," John says, impatiently. He leans forward. "I saw him, Mycroft. I saw him properly, in the hospital. He had short hair."

He is gratified to see a flicker of emotion in that icy exterior. John presses on. "Why would I see him with short hair? If it was a hallucination then I should have seen him as I remembered him. Not sporting a dodgy haircut." He clasps his hands together and tries to remain calm. "Somehow Sherlock faked his death; don't ask me how, but I think he was trying to tell me something when he was up there on the roof - "

And then Mycroft holds up his hand, and John stops, mid-sentence.

"I'm afraid you're imagining things, John," Mycroft says silkily. "Your mind is running away with you. You were in a high dependency unit under heavy sedation; it's not uncommon to have hallucinations in that environment."

"No," he says, but Mycroft continues.

"You and Sherlock always were complete opposites." Mycroft puts a slight emphasis on that last word, and he is thrown by the apparent non-sequitur. The older man looks up then, just for a second, at the ceiling.

The penny drops. Mycroft is using a code. "Opposites," he repeats, and he is rewarded by a subtle nod.

"As you yourself witnessed," Mycroft says, "my brother is dead. Quite dead. For once in his life, he is finally at peace." Mycroft looks at him significantly. "You would do as well to forget him, John. Sherlock is never coming back."

A thrill runs through him; _Mycroft means the exact opposite of what he is saying, _and he has to struggle to keep his composure. "You always were a cold, unfeeling bastard, Mycroft," he says with as much heat as he can muster, and he is pleased to see Mycroft's lips twitch.

"I'll see myself out," he says, getting up.

Mycroft's words follow him out the door. "A pleasure, John, as always."

* * *

At first he is elated, euphoric even. _Sherlock's alive!_ He replays Mycroft's words over and over again in his head, hearing the hidden message. _He's in some sort of danger, so he can't reveal himself yet. But he's alive! And he's coming back._

He starts seeing Sherlock everywhere; on the tube, in the supermarket. He even thinks he hears Sherlock when he picks up the phone. But each time, it is only a stranger who happens to resemble Sherlock.

He struggles to sleep at night. He's still recovering from the stab wound, and the painkillers are playing havoc with his internal clock.

When he does fall asleep, he dreams of Sherlock, falling, his body smacking onto the pavement.

He thinks he is going mad.

* * *

"I don't know what to believe any more," he tells Ella. They are in her office. "I thought he came to visit me when I was in hospital, and Mycroft pretty much confirmed it, but - "

"What did this Mycroft actually say?"

"Um, that Sherlock was dead, at peace, that he wasn't coming back..." Ella is making notes. "But he was speaking in code. He was saying the opposite of what he meant."

"Why would he do that?"

He shrugs. "Maybe his office was bugged or something, I don't know."

Ella puts her pen down then. "John, do you realise how far-fetched this sounds?"

He plays with the arm of the chair, refusing to meet her eyes. "I know it sounds a bit unlikely - "

"What are the facts, John? What do you know?"

He clears his throat. "I saw him jump. I saw his body." He closes his eyes, and his throat burns.

When Ella eventually speaks, her voice is gentle. "It's not unusual for people to be reminded of their loved ones around the time of the anniversary."

"But it was so vivid," he says, looking up. "I had an entire conversation with him. I saw him. He touched my shoulder. Why – why would I imagine that?"

She leafs through her notes. "Because subconsciously, you think he's coming back. You've always thought that, ever since he died. You saw him because you wanted to see him."

He smiles humourlessly. "That's not entirely true - "

She finds what she is looking for. "You told me that when you first went to his grave, you asked him "for a miracle". You told him to "stop being dead". Like he was only pretending."

It hurts to hear his words parroted back at him.

"That's not normal behaviour, John."

"I know," he whispers.

"You're still in denial. You need to let him go. You need to accept that he's gone."

"How?"

She gives him a considering glance. "I'm not sure it's healthy for you to stay in London, not when there are so many reminders of him around. My advice to you is to move out the flat, move out the city. Start afresh somewhere. Otherwise you'll spend your whole life waiting for a ghost."

* * *

He stumbles out onto the street, the tears that he managed to hold back now threatening him with a vengeance. He starts to walk in a random direction. He thinks about what Mycroft said. He thinks about what Ella said.

Was that conversation with Mycroft really a coded message?

He remembers the Connie Prince case, how he'd been so _sure_ of his theory that the brother had done it...later Sherlock had accused him of reading into things that weren't there, of letting his imagination run wild.

But he'd seen Sherlock in the hospital -

Yes, and he'd managed to have _an entire conversation _with a non-existent Sherlock in the store room. It wasn't like he had a great track record; he'd given himself a bloody psychosomatic limp, for goodness sake. He obviously couldn't trust his own body, his own mind. What then could he trust?

_The fall...the body...the blood._

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. He thinks he may actually start having a breakdown right here in the middle of the street.

_Breathe_, he tells himself. _Breathe_.

"You need to let him go," he hears Ella say in his head.

When he takes his hands away, he finds that he has walked to Barts. He is standing in the exact spot where Sherlock... where he... He cannot bring himself to say the word 'died'.

He looks down at the slabs of concretes, so clean and dry and empty now. Slowly he lowers himself to sit on the curb.

He caresses the pavement.

And then he starts crying.

Various people stop and ask if he's okay, and he just nods. He can't stop crying.

* * *

Eventually he gets himself under control. Ironically he feels a bit better now after blubbling like a two-year-old.

Realistically, he knows he can't keep living like this. It's like Ella said; he has two choices before him. He can move out of Baker Street and start a new life somewhere else - perhaps he can do some speciality training and go back to A&E work, or do some voluntary medical work abroad. He thinks he could find enjoyment and fulfilment in those things.

Or, he can choose to stay here, in London. He can choose to wait for his friend to return from the dead, against all logic, reason and sense, for as long as it takes. He can continue living at Baker Street, seeing Mrs. Hudson for Sunday lunch, working at the clinic, having the occasional pint with Greg...until the years eat up his life.

He raises his head, and looks again at the pavement. Nods to himself. He pats the ground, and then he gets to his feet. _Right then. Decision made. _

He chooses to stay.

He chooses to hope.

_I believe in Sherlock Holmes. _

* * *

_Finis_


End file.
